Editorials
10 Truly Scary TV Episodes to Binge in October
One of the best things about the month of October is that horror can be found everywhere, from both the big screen and small. There’s a long history of television shows getting into the spirit of Halloween, with holiday and horror-centric episodes. Though there may be no shortage in horror TV series these days, the chills and thrills delivered by Halloween themed episodes likely played a vital role in shaping horror on the small screen into what it is today. While October is full of horror movie watch lists, here are the scariest TV episodes that prove sometimes television offers the biggest scares worth binging this Halloween:
“The Perils of Punky” – Punky Brewster (air date:10/20/1985)
This two-part Halloween episode of ‘80s phenom Punky Brewster left traumatic scars on the minds of unsuspecting children everywhere. Normally a family-friendly sitcom about a very spunky orphan, Punky, and her dog, this episode begins like any other standard episode with Punky and her pals on a camping trip. Naturally, they begin to tell each other scary stories around the campfire, and before long Punky is on a quest to vanquish the evil that lurks in a cavern as her friends begin to disappear. Giant spiders and dancing skeletons would be enough to terrorize impressionable young minds, right? Cue the moment Punky begs the entity to give her back her friends, and the horrific face of her friend Alan, now monstrous, pops up in the wall to frighten her. Pure. Nightmare. Fuel.
“The Haunted Mask” – Goosebumps (air date: 10/27/1995)
Another beloved two-part Halloween special that left a lasting impression during youth, this Goosebumps episode remains one of the most popular. It also happens to be one of the scariest. A cautionary tale of acceptance, the real terror lies with that grotesque mask. Carly Beth’s panic at the mask becoming part of her skin, therefore unable to remove it, is palpable. It’s the type of thing that makes one swear off wearing masks on Halloween for life.
“The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float” – Are You Afraid of the Dark? (air date: 10/7/1995)
Horror has long-since taught us to be afraid of the ocean, but this episode also taught us to fear the swimming pool. The episode opens in 1951, where a boy smells something strange in the water at a public pool before being pulled under to his death. Cut to forty years later, where science fanatic Zeke trades tutoring for swim lessons with his crush. Naturally, he picks the same pool from the episode’s opening, now a hidden secret locked away behind lockers. Zeke discovers the source of that smell; a gnarly corpse that loves to drown swimmers. This episode is quick and suspenseful, but it’s amazing creature effects that make this episode stand out above the rest.
“The House that Bled to Death” – Hammer House of Horror (air date: 10/11/1980)
This Hammer Films anthology series inexplicably only had one season, and, as this creepy episode indicates, it should have had much more. The cold open sets up the haunting atmosphere right off the bat, with an elder couple quietly enjoying tea before the husband brutally murders his wife with a knife. A new family moves into the home and quickly find themselves dealing with tell-tale signs of hauntings: strange noises, bloody handprints, a terrible pet death, and the worst children’s birthday party in horror history. It’s this moment that makes the episode memorable, with gallons of blood spilling out from burst pipes onto children during what’s supposed to be a celebration. That alone would be enough, but the episode delivers one last scare in the form of an insane twist.
“Only Skin Deep” – Tales from the Crypt (air date: 10/31/1994)
Directed by William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), this Halloween themed episode is a bright spot in season sixth’s overall weak season. Perhaps inspiring future Masters of Horror episode Jenifer, this episode sees a real jerk of a human crashing his ex’s Halloween party, where he meets a mysterious masked woman that offers him a night he won’t ever forget. Carl is easily one of the series’ most detestable characters; the episode quickly establishes his history with violence and domestic disturbance. His obsession with masked woman Molly leads to graphic sex, making for an uncomfortable watch considering how repulsive he is. Which makes the gruesome twist so satisfying. What’s beneath Molly’s mask is downright gory, and Carl’s fate is a chilling dose of karma.
“Nightcrawlers” – The Twilight Zone (air date: 10/18/1985)
One of the best segments in The Twilight Zone’s revival series was based on a short story by Robert R. McCammon and directed by the prolific William Friedkin. A dark tale about the lasting horrors of the Vietnam War, Nightcrawlers features an AWOL soldier with an uncanny ability to manifest his thoughts in a small-town diner after a massacre at a nearby motel. The manifestations begin small enough, with cold beers and steaks appearing just by wishing for it. Soon, though, the diner becomes a war zone of phantom soldiers laying siege. An extremely dark, violent episode with memorably tense performances, Nightcrawlers remains one of the best segments in the revival.
“Everybody Loves a Clown” -Supernatural (air date: 10/5/2006)
When the series is about two brothers hunting down ghosts, monsters, and demons, what makes this episode so special? Clowns. Clowns are scary. The clown in this episode is actually a demon in disguise; it takes on the form of a clown to trick children into bringing it home with them so it can devour their parents. By day, it’s a knife thrower at a carnival. Nothing creepy about that, right? Wrong. The cold open that sees the clown following a little girl and her family home is one of the creepiest moments in television.
“Incident on and Off a Mountain Road” – Masters of Horror (air date: 10/28/2005)
The premiere episode of Masters of Horror packed a huge punch and fitting that the horror series began so close to Halloween. Directed by Don Coscarelli, and featuring a fun performance by Angus Scrimm, this episode had it all: gore, violence, trigger warnings, eye trauma, and a super fun twist. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for stories where the predator becomes the prey, as well as Coscarelli’s brand of humor. Bree Turner makes for a fine final girl, but it’s Ethan Embry’s turn as the violent husband that’s scariest of all.
“Night of Desirable Objects” -Fringe (air date: 9/24/2009)
So, the original air date of this underrated sci-fi show aired late September, not October. It’s close enough. Besides, from a setting and tonal standpoint, it’s very Halloween-like in aesthetic. This monster of the week type episode features a small Pennsylvanian town like a certain X-Files episode, a creaky old house, one super tense scene in a field with a scarecrow (seriously, horror needs more scarecrows), and a very creepy underground dwelling creature that feeds on people. Genetically modifying babies is bad, people. An eerie and suspenseful episode that comes close to invoking the suspenseful episodes of the X-Files, Night of Desirable Objects is perfect for Halloween.
“Home” – The X-Files (air date: 10/11/1996)
The first episode of The X-Files to receive a viewer discretion warning for a reason, it was banned from re-airing on Fox. The producers called it tasteless. I call it the scariest episode of television. Set in the small town of Home, Pennsylvania (sounds familiar), the duo of Mulder and Scully find themselves contending with a clan of violent, homicidal inbreds. It’s the graphic discussion of incest that disturbed the network and producers, but it’s the tense home invasion aspect and the disfigured family that makes this episode so scary. That moment where the agents find quadruple amputee Mrs. Peacock under the bed? Chilling. As scary as this episode is, perhaps scariest of all is that part of the basis for the story came from Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography- in which locals from a small Welsh town invited him to meet a deformed man living in a kitchen cupboard.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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